Virtual Worlds – Best Practices

References provided in Literature Section

• Design a virtual world that incurs strong psychological ownership (a measure of usability) so users spend more time, do more activities, and return to the virtual world (Lee & Chen, 2011)
• Design spaces so the social, location, and task cues are intuitive to reduce the ‘cost’ in understanding the meaning (Goel, Johnson, Junglas, & Ives, 2011)
• Provide experiences for learners to explore, observe, investigate, and manipulate objects so they take ownership (Downey, 2011)
• Give precise navigation directions or use teleporting so not to lose a student or create long cognitive dead times (Downey, 2011)
• Consider specifying the number of in-world sites to visit to promote variety to the in-world experience (Houser et al., 2011)
• Implement accountability strategies at both the group and individual level (Good, Howland, & Thackray, 2008)
• Encourage social engagement such as through team-based activities as these are likely the most effective in virtual world learning environments (Shen & Eder, 2009)
• Provide rooms and tools for multiple working groups to use and interact (Chang, Gutl, Kopeinik, & Williams, 2009)
• Provide an orientation to Second Life but also provide a refresher on how to use the collaborative tools just before they are needed (Chang, Gutl, Kopeinik, & Williams, 2009)
• Name the site buildings and provide a map (Chang, Gutl, Kopeinik, & Williams, 2009)
• Provide an on-going help desk for technical support (Chang, Gutl, Kopeinik, & Williams, 2009)
• Use detection bots to track student visitation and activity (Dreher, Reiner, Dreher, & Dreher, 2009)
• Visit stud ents in-world to question and review activities (Dreher, Reiner, Dreher, & Dreher, 2009)
• Be explicit on how and why Second Life is being integrated into a course (Jarmon, Traphagan, & Mayrath, 2008)
• Develop a virtual world learning environment that includes addressing project-based pedagogy, technical training and support, and assessment (Jarmon, Traphagan, & Mayrath, 2008)
• Create instructional designs that leverage the unique affordances of Second Life and that use real-world projects (Jarmon, Traphagan, & Mayrath, 2008)
• Leverage Second Life affordances of: making field trips to content-related locations; having students make presentations; inviting guest lecturers; and implementing short and long-term collaborative projects (O’Conner, 2009)
• Make learning how to interact in a virtual world an assignment so students invest the time (O’Conner, 2009)
• Recognize that an online meeting time means developing a schedule amenable to all participants (O’Conner, 2009)
• Develop ways students can document their work, for example leverage the camera snapshot if field trips are required (O’Conner, 2009)
• Provide the means, tools, and structure for collaboration (O’Conner, 2009)
• Establish protocols for interaction in group meetings (O’Conner, 2009)